


Dean doesn't believe in grief counseling... until he does

by Riverchester



Series: s13 - random thoughts and Codas [4]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Counseling, Dean Talks About Feelings, Episode: s13e04 The Big Empty, Grief/Mourning, Jack is a cutie, M/M, Sam Feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-03
Updated: 2017-11-03
Packaged: 2019-01-28 22:39:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12617132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Riverchester/pseuds/Riverchester
Summary: The Winchesters don't leave Mia alone with the dead body, they help her and in return, she helps them more than Dean would have thought possible.13x04 Coda "The Big Empty"





	Dean doesn't believe in grief counseling... until he does

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so I needed to write this fic mostly to process the episode. It's not Beta read but I hope you stil enjoy it :)

It’s over. Another hunt successfully solved, thanks to Sam… and Jack. Dean has to admit that the boy did good, using his powers to save Sam in just the right moment.

The three of them help Mia to get rid of the body and use her bathroom to clean themselves up a bit afterwards. Dean is glad, that way he won’t get blood on Baby’s leather seats.

“Thank you,” Mia says when they all stand in her counseling room again.

“You’re welcome,” Dean answers and is about to step out of the room, when she adds “If there’s anything I can do for you, please let me know.”

He opens his mouth to say they wouldn’t need it, but Jack is quicker. “Maybe… you could help them like you helped me.”

Dean looks over to his brother quizzically, but the taller man doesn’t seem to have any clue either.

“What do you mean, Jack? How did she help you?” Sam asks.

The boy turns around to them, smiling softly. “She took my mother’s appearance. It was scary at first, but then I was glad. Even if it was just the image of her, I could finally tell her what I wanted to say for so long. And I believe that it could help you too.”

What the hell? Is he suggesting that this shifter takes the form of his mom? He can’t be serious about it. Dean waits for his brother to turn it down, but to his utter shock, the other man seems to muse about the offer.

“Sam?” he asks. The soft, pleading expression on his face tells Dean that this is going to be a fight. “Really? You need to think about that? Come on, man, it’s crazy.”

“I- I don’t know, Dean. Maybe it would help us to… bring this to a close.”

“What is there to talk about? Mom is dead, I accepted that, no need to make the shifter take her form,” Dean fumes. He can’t believe his brother actually considers it.

Jack just watches them, opening his mouth but closing it again, because Sam is not finished yet. “Okay, maybe not mom, but what about Cas?” Dean cringes. He’d hoped his brother wouldn’t go there, but of course they always end up talking about Cas. “Even if you got over _her_ death,” Sam goes on, “which I don’t believe for one second, you’re definitely not over Cas! You are grieving but you don’t allow yourself to show it. You repress your feelings, only letting them out by blaming Jack and yelling at me. That’s not okay!”

Dean knows that he’s yelling too much, but he’s just not the kind of guy who sits crying in a corner. Yes, he probably drinks too much for his own good and shoves the sadness away, but he really doesn’t need his brother to tell him in which way he should grieve.

“I get that you not only lost your mother recently?” Mia pipes up. _Great job, Sam Winchester_ , Dean thinks.

“Em, yes. On the same day, we lost our best friend too,” Sam explains, “His name was Castiel and… he was an angel. It’s all a bit complicated, but in summary, he helped Jack’s mom through her pregnancy and kept her save from someone… quite evil. Unfortunately, this person caught them up and it got Castiel killed. My brother and I were there. He died right in front of us.”

Dean closed his eyes while Sam was talking, the images of that night still come back to him.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Mia comforts, then turns her attention to him. “Dean I don’t always shift for my patients. I’m into classic grief counseling too, you know?”

Dean looks up and sees three pairs of eyes watching him. He feels like a deer in the headlights. Why does everyone want him to talk about his feelings? As if it would help anything to tell people how damaged and broken he is on the inside. But eventually, he yields. If it’s so important for them, he will endure it. Maybe some of Sam’s faith will leap to him, because right now, he doesn’t believe in a damn thing.

“Okay, okay,” he says, taking a seat on the couch, “you two start talking, I’ll see if I feel up for it.”

The four of them sit down and simply… _talk_. It doesn’t feel like creepy shrink stuff, but Dean is still not comfortable enough to open his mouth, so he lets Jack and Sam open their hearts. It’s depressing what his brother has to say. How much sadness and worries he carries around with himself. And Dean feels awful for playing a part in it. He stays quiet, though, because Sam is in a flow and because he has no idea how to apologize for his behavior anyway. That he _has_ to apologize is no secret by now. To Jack, too. When the boy says he wants Dean to like him, that he searches for his approval, it’s a mental slap in the face. Sam was right, he acted just like John and that’s not good at all. Right now, they are kind of the parents for Jack, whether they like it or not, and he was anything but a role model lately. Cas would hit him for this. _Cas…_

“Dean, you’re quiet. Don’t you have anything you want to talk about?” Mia’s voice brings him back from his thoughts, but it still doesn’t get him to talk. He simply waves her offer off. “I can’t help if you don’t say at least something,” she adds.

Dean looks over to her, then to Sam and Jack. His brother and the boy seem… _calmer_. Maybe it does help to spill his guts to her. He thinks about doing just that, about telling her what nags at his mind for weeks now. But with his brother and Jack in the room, hearing everything he’ll say, he can’t. He just… can’t.

“Do you want Sam and me to leave?” Jack says. Wow, it’s like he can read his mind. But he can’t, right?

A bit of sweat forms on his forehead at that thought, but he quickly shoves it away and nods. No other answer, but it’s enough for his brother to jump up from his seat.

“Sorry,” the younger hunter says, patting him on the shoulder, “I should’ve known that you wouldn’t want us around. Give me the keys and we’ll wait in the car. Or do you want me to stay in the house? Just in case.”

“No,” Dean answers, his voice hoarse from not speaking for a long time, “you and Jack can wait in the car. It won’t take long.”

When the two men are out of the door and Dean can be sure they left the house, he lets himself slump into the seat.

“Why don’t you just tell me a bit about him, huh?” Mia says.

“Well, I don’t know where to start.” That’s not exactly true. He knows it all starts when Cas raised him from perdition. But can he say that?

“Wherever you want. So, Sam said that he was an angel, and your best friend. How did you meet?”

“He saved my life,” Dean answers. It’s the crucial point in the story.

“So, you feel like you owe him? Like you failed him because you couldn’t save him?” she asks.

He huffs. “It’s a bit more complicated than that.”

With that, he starts talking. He tells her about all the times he failed Cas. How often he attacked the angel for – in hindsight – nothing. He tries to tell it in a short, and less insane way, but stays as true to reality as possible, because if she really wants to help him, she needs to know just how much he fucked up.

“And now,” he says at last, desperately fighting against the tears, “I’ll never have the chance to apologize, to make it up to him.”

She hands him a tissue and he takes it, although he still pretends he doesn’t need it.

“There are a lot of things left unsaid between you two, right?” she says and Dean nods. She has no idea just how much Dean missed to tell Cas. “Dean, sometimes it helps to say them, even to someone else.”

He looks at her and considers it, he really does, but the words just won’t come out. She takes the seat right next to him on the sofa and gently puts a hand on his shoulder. “I know you were against it… but if you have a photo or even a video of him, I could –”

“No!” Dean says.

“Okay, I’m sorry,” she quickly calms him.

But she didn’t understand him… that he said no because… “I mean… I don’t have a photo. At least not one that represents him right.”

He stares down at his lap but looks up again when Mia starts to speak. “I guess you know that shapeshifters are sort of telepathic, Dean. We usually use the memory of the person we shift to, but that only works as long as they are alive. For my counseling, I live from what my patiences have told me about their loved ones and sometimes… Sometimes I take a look into their memories too. If you could recall some moments with Castiel, some memories you have that are really strong, I can use them instead of a picture.”

Dean thinks about it for a minute. _Strong memories_ … There is so much he could recall, but also not enough. He tries to find the ones where Cas wasn’t hurt or broken or angry. He remembers some moments back when they first met. Or during the apocalypse. Or how, not that long ago, when he went out to face Amara, Cas had offered to go with him. That’s the Cas he wants to remember. The man who doesn’t get the jokes, who is fascinated by humanity and who is always there for him. _The man I fell in love with_.

“Do you have the right memory?” Mia asks.

Yes, he has all these memories, and they show him how good he had it with Cas. It wasn’t much and it definitely wasn’t long enough or in any way what Dean had like them to be, but in between darkness and sadness, there was always light for them.

“Yes,” he says and takes a deep breath, “but I don’t want you to shift to him.”

She looks at him bewildered, so he continues. “It wouldn’t be the same, right? I would know it’s not him. I could apologize, but he wouldn’t hear it and I don’t want to simply say it for myself,” he pauses for a moment, “And the only thing that truly matters, the only thing that I really missed to tell him, … I could never say to anybody else.”

With a bit of delay, she seems to realize what he meant, and she smiles at him. “I understand. Then, keep the good memories. Of course, there will be times everything feels like the end of the world,” she says, and Dean has to laugh under his breath, “but remember these moments.”

He sighs. It still hurts that Cas is gone, but like she said, he has a lot of good memories to remember. With a deep breath, he stands up from the sofa and thanks her. He’s already on the doorstep when she stops him. “Oh, and Dean? Be glad about your family. Sam and Jack care about you and it doesn’t help to keep them at arm’s length, okay?”

He nods and leaves the house.

Back in the car, he slumps behind the steering wheel and pretends he doesn’t notice Sam’s expecting glances.

They drive the whole night back to the bunker and are all exhausted when they park the Impala in the garage. But this time, Dean isn’t afraid of falling asleep. He won’t need bottle after bottler of beer to reach this comatose state, where he gets enough rest to live on, but doesn’t have to face the images torturing him at night.

He follows his brother and Jack into the library and nearly bumps into them, when they both stop abruptly.

“Hey, don’t stop in the middle of the hall, guys,” he says, but doesn’t get an answer. He steps to the side to see what brought them to such a sudden stop. The sight knocks the air out of his lungs and he feels his knees give away under him, so he has to grab the shelve to his right to not fall to the ground. That’s not possible… it can’t be…

“Hello, Dean.”

**Author's Note:**

> I'm curious to know how you think Dean would handle the offer of Mia shifting to Cas. If you like, leave a comment and let me know. And if you liked this fic, I'm always super overwhelmed about kudos <3


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